FREDRIK LOGEVALL
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| O presidente dos EUA, Lyndon Johnson, e o secretário de Defesa dos EUA, Robert McNamara, em uma reunião do Conselho de Segurança Nacional, Washington, D.C., fevereiro de 1968 Arquivos Nacionais e Administração de Registros dos EUA |
Certa manhã de novembro de 1966, o secretário de Defesa dos EUA, Robert McNamara, chegou à Universidade Harvard para o que imaginava ser um dia de diálogo animado, porém harmonioso, com estudantes e um grupo de professores. O descontentamento com a Guerra do Vietnã vinha crescendo nos campi universitários nos meses anteriores, e McNamara, um dos principais arquitetos da "americanização" do conflito em 1965, que resultou na introdução de grandes contingentes militares americanos, era frequentemente alvo de protestos estudantis. Mesmo assim, ele viajou para Harvard sem escolta policial.
Ao sair da Quincy House após almoçar com alunos de graduação, uma multidão de estudantes cercou McNamara, bloqueando sua saída. Conforme a multidão crescia para várias centenas de pessoas, ele conseguiu chegar ao seu carro. Subiu no capô; alguém lhe entregou um microfone e ele concordou em responder a perguntas. Mas foi subjugado pelo coro de vaias dos estudantes. Com a paciência se esgotando, o secretário de Defesa declarou: "Passei quatro dos anos mais felizes da minha vida no campus de Berkeley fazendo algumas das mesmas coisas que vocês estão fazendo aqui. Mas havia uma diferença importante: eu era mais rigoroso e mais cortês... Eu era mais rigoroso naquela época e sou mais rigoroso agora." Os manifestantes o chamavam de “fascista” e “assassino”.
Apesar de sua postura desafiadora, McNamara estava profundamente perturbado com o estado da guerra, como deixou claro em uma reunião a portas fechadas com professores naquele mesmo dia. “Não conheço um único quilômetro quadrado do Vietnã que tenha sido pacificado”, disse ele. “Muitos militares discordam de mim, mas ninguém ainda identificou esse quilômetro quadrado. Quando tentam, eu digo que vou entrar em um jipe — sem escolta de batalhão — e atravessar aquela área. Embora alguns deles talvez gostassem de me ver tentar, nenhum deles me deixaria. Eles também não atravessariam a área sem escolta.”
Nos meses seguintes, o pessimismo de McNamara se intensificou. Sua análise da situação o convenceu de que o Vietnã do Norte, uma sociedade predominantemente rural, não poderia ser subjugado por uma campanha aérea. O número crescente de mortos, incluindo as mortes de civis, o angustiava. No início de 1967, ele tinha certeza de que o moral do inimigo não havia se abalado e que a estabilidade política continuava muito fora do alcance do regime apoiado pelos EUA no Vietnã do Sul. Enquanto isso, a guerra minava a credibilidade dos Estados Unidos, tanto interna quanto internacionalmente, à medida que aliados e adversários questionavam o julgamento de Washington.
“Pode haver um limite que muitos americanos e grande parte do mundo não permitirão que os Estados Unidos ultrapassem”, escreveu McNamara ao presidente Lyndon Johnson em maio de 1967. “A imagem da maior superpotência do mundo matando ou ferindo gravemente mil não combatentes por semana, enquanto tenta subjugar uma nação pequena e atrasada em uma questão cujos méritos são intensamente contestados, não é nada bonita.”
Mesmo assim, McNamara manteve publicamente sua fé, expressando confiança de que a vitória poderia ser alcançada. Mas seus dias no governo estavam contados. Em novembro, Johnson, farto do desencanto de McNamara e de seus apelos por uma mudança de política em direção às negociações, anunciou que o secretário de Defesa deixaria o governo para liderar o Banco Mundial — na prática, demitindo-o. No final de fevereiro de 1968, McNamara já não estava mais no cargo. Ele foi logo substituído por Clark Clifford, um político do Partido Democrata, que em pouco tempo chegou à mesma perspectiva sombria sobre as perspectivas da guerra.
O drama da visita a Harvard e os desdobramentos nos meses seguintes são habilmente narrados em McNamara at War, o relato criterioso e, em grande parte, convincente de Philip e William Taubman sobre o que é frequentemente chamado — compreensivelmente, ainda que não totalmente correto — de “A Guerra de McNamara”. Na vasta e crescente literatura sobre a guerra, estudos aprofundados sobre o papel de McNamara na definição do compromisso dos EUA com o Vietnã do Sul são surpreendentemente poucos, apesar da dominância de McNamara no gabinete sob Johnson e o presidente John F. Kennedy, e de seus sete anos no Pentágono. (Ele continua sendo o secretário de defesa com o mandato mais longo da história do país.) Por anos, historiadores se perguntaram quando um grande livro sobre McNamara e o Vietnã seria publicado. Agora, ele chegou.
É uma história extraordinária em alguns aspectos — e, em outros, profundamente familiar. Outros altos funcionários americanos, antes e depois de McNamara, sentiram-se pressionados a permanecer no cargo, a se calar, a engolir suas dúvidas na esperança de que as coisas melhorassem ou, pelo menos, impedissem que piorassem. Desistir, por outro lado, seria se expor a acusações de deslealdade ou fraqueza, ou ambas. Eles poderiam perder tanto a causa quanto a honra. Então, eles continuam, muitas vezes para seu arrependimento posterior, sem mencionar o prejuízo para o país. Se a experiência de McNamara oferece uma lição fundamental, é uma que é simples de compreender, mas que muitas vezes passa despercebida: se mais funcionários de alto escalão estivessem dispostos a renunciar por suas convicções, os cidadãos teriam a garantia de que aqueles que permanecem realmente acreditam no que estão fazendo.
Ao sair da Quincy House após almoçar com alunos de graduação, uma multidão de estudantes cercou McNamara, bloqueando sua saída. Conforme a multidão crescia para várias centenas de pessoas, ele conseguiu chegar ao seu carro. Subiu no capô; alguém lhe entregou um microfone e ele concordou em responder a perguntas. Mas foi subjugado pelo coro de vaias dos estudantes. Com a paciência se esgotando, o secretário de Defesa declarou: "Passei quatro dos anos mais felizes da minha vida no campus de Berkeley fazendo algumas das mesmas coisas que vocês estão fazendo aqui. Mas havia uma diferença importante: eu era mais rigoroso e mais cortês... Eu era mais rigoroso naquela época e sou mais rigoroso agora." Os manifestantes o chamavam de “fascista” e “assassino”.
Apesar de sua postura desafiadora, McNamara estava profundamente perturbado com o estado da guerra, como deixou claro em uma reunião a portas fechadas com professores naquele mesmo dia. “Não conheço um único quilômetro quadrado do Vietnã que tenha sido pacificado”, disse ele. “Muitos militares discordam de mim, mas ninguém ainda identificou esse quilômetro quadrado. Quando tentam, eu digo que vou entrar em um jipe — sem escolta de batalhão — e atravessar aquela área. Embora alguns deles talvez gostassem de me ver tentar, nenhum deles me deixaria. Eles também não atravessariam a área sem escolta.”
Nos meses seguintes, o pessimismo de McNamara se intensificou. Sua análise da situação o convenceu de que o Vietnã do Norte, uma sociedade predominantemente rural, não poderia ser subjugado por uma campanha aérea. O número crescente de mortos, incluindo as mortes de civis, o angustiava. No início de 1967, ele tinha certeza de que o moral do inimigo não havia se abalado e que a estabilidade política continuava muito fora do alcance do regime apoiado pelos EUA no Vietnã do Sul. Enquanto isso, a guerra minava a credibilidade dos Estados Unidos, tanto interna quanto internacionalmente, à medida que aliados e adversários questionavam o julgamento de Washington.
“Pode haver um limite que muitos americanos e grande parte do mundo não permitirão que os Estados Unidos ultrapassem”, escreveu McNamara ao presidente Lyndon Johnson em maio de 1967. “A imagem da maior superpotência do mundo matando ou ferindo gravemente mil não combatentes por semana, enquanto tenta subjugar uma nação pequena e atrasada em uma questão cujos méritos são intensamente contestados, não é nada bonita.”
Mesmo assim, McNamara manteve publicamente sua fé, expressando confiança de que a vitória poderia ser alcançada. Mas seus dias no governo estavam contados. Em novembro, Johnson, farto do desencanto de McNamara e de seus apelos por uma mudança de política em direção às negociações, anunciou que o secretário de Defesa deixaria o governo para liderar o Banco Mundial — na prática, demitindo-o. No final de fevereiro de 1968, McNamara já não estava mais no cargo. Ele foi logo substituído por Clark Clifford, um político do Partido Democrata, que em pouco tempo chegou à mesma perspectiva sombria sobre as perspectivas da guerra.
O drama da visita a Harvard e os desdobramentos nos meses seguintes são habilmente narrados em McNamara at War, o relato criterioso e, em grande parte, convincente de Philip e William Taubman sobre o que é frequentemente chamado — compreensivelmente, ainda que não totalmente correto — de “A Guerra de McNamara”. Na vasta e crescente literatura sobre a guerra, estudos aprofundados sobre o papel de McNamara na definição do compromisso dos EUA com o Vietnã do Sul são surpreendentemente poucos, apesar da dominância de McNamara no gabinete sob Johnson e o presidente John F. Kennedy, e de seus sete anos no Pentágono. (Ele continua sendo o secretário de defesa com o mandato mais longo da história do país.) Por anos, historiadores se perguntaram quando um grande livro sobre McNamara e o Vietnã seria publicado. Agora, ele chegou.
É uma história extraordinária em alguns aspectos — e, em outros, profundamente familiar. Outros altos funcionários americanos, antes e depois de McNamara, sentiram-se pressionados a permanecer no cargo, a se calar, a engolir suas dúvidas na esperança de que as coisas melhorassem ou, pelo menos, impedissem que piorassem. Desistir, por outro lado, seria se expor a acusações de deslealdade ou fraqueza, ou ambas. Eles poderiam perder tanto a causa quanto a honra. Então, eles continuam, muitas vezes para seu arrependimento posterior, sem mencionar o prejuízo para o país. Se a experiência de McNamara oferece uma lição fundamental, é uma que é simples de compreender, mas que muitas vezes passa despercebida: se mais funcionários de alto escalão estivessem dispostos a renunciar por suas convicções, os cidadãos teriam a garantia de que aqueles que permanecem realmente acreditam no que estão fazendo.
BEST AND BRIGHTEST
The Taubmans are excellent on their subject’s formative years. Born in San Francisco in 1916 to a cold and aloof father and a striving, intense mother, McNamara demonstrated from an early age his intellectual prowess and his endless capacity for hard work. He excelled at every level of education, showing a keen analytical mind, a knack for numbers, and a singular talent for concision—classmates at Piedmont High marveled as he received A grades on papers far shorter than theirs. At the University of California, Berkeley, McNamara made Phi Beta Kappa in his sophomore year and became a member of the Order of the Golden Bear, a quasi-secret society dedicated to promoting leadership within the student body.
Following graduation in 1937, McNamara went on to Harvard Business School, blazing a path of such distinction that he was invited to join the faculty as an assistant professor of business administration soon after receiving his master’s degree. During World War II, he and several other management specialists were recruited by Robert Lovett, then assistant secretary of war for air, to bring precision and efficiency to the study of air force effectiveness in bombing operations. McNamara again stood out as indefatigable and disciplined, with superior analytical intelligence and a ravenous appetite for information.
After the war, McNamara joined the Ford Motor Company. Named company controller in 1949, he had risen to group vice president in charge of all car and truck divisions by 1957. On November 9, 1960, the same day Kennedy claimed victory in a closely contested presidential election, McNamara was named president of the company, becoming the first person from outside the Ford family to hold that position since 1906.
Within weeks of his win, Kennedy tapped McNamara to head the Department of Defense. In short order, McNamara became first among equals in Kennedy’s cabinet, winning plaudits for his use of systems analysis to make the Pentagon function more economically by reducing weapons redundancies among the services and better allocating resources. Appearing before congressional committees, he dazzled lawmakers with his intellect, his command of detail, and his crisp, authoritative style of presentation. Among aides, he inspired admiration and devotion, not least for his work ethic: subordinates who made a point of getting to work early would invariably find McNamara’s car already in the Pentagon garage.
Já em 1962, McNamara começara a duvidar das perspectivas do Vietnã do Sul.
Senior military officers, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were less enthused. To them, the hard-hitting style of McNamara and his “whiz kid” civilian aides, many of them plucked from the Rand Corporation or Ivy League schools, smacked of arrogance, as they presumed to lecture the services on how the Pentagon should operate. “He’s one of the most egotistical persons I know,” a top general complained to Time. The result, predictably, was frequent altercations with the chiefs, who clamored for more of everything and had grown accustomed to allying with lawmakers eager to procure defense contracts for their districts or states.
Yet McNamara triumphed in many of these power struggles, and in doing so put his stamp on the office to a greater extent than any secretary of defense before him or since. In addition to his efforts to reorganize the Pentagon, he was deeply involved in high-level national security and foreign policy matters. Alongside Kennedy, McNamara determined soon after taking office that nuclear weapons were essentially useless, and he expressed horror at the apocalyptic overkill of the new Single Integrated Operational Plan for waging nuclear war, which called for the president to launch thousands of nuclear weapons in the event of an armed conflict with the Soviet Union. He pressed for a more flexible doctrine, including the adoption of a “counterforce” strategy that would target Soviet missile sites rather than cities.
At the outset of the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, McNamara shocked colleagues by asserting that the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba did not appreciably shift the nuclear balance. During the harrowing days that followed, he was not always consistent in his advocacy, but he remained a reasoned and prudent voice and an early proponent of the blockade that would ultimately defuse the crisis.
MILITARY CHARADE
It was Vietnam, however, that would forever define McNamara’s legacy in government. From the administration’s first days in 1961, he took a leading role in shaping U.S. support for South Vietnam. That fall, with the insurgency against the Saigon government gaining strength, General Maxwell Taylor and Deputy National Security Adviser Walt Rostow returned from a fact-finding mission to Saigon to recommend sending more U.S. military advisers and a limited number of combat troops. McNamara initially endorsed the recommendation, but when Kennedy ruled out sending ground forces, the secretary quickly adopted that position as his own—not the last time, the Taubmans tartly note, that “he seemed to tailor his views about Vietnam to align them with his president’s.”
This would indeed become McNamara’s pattern in the years to come. And it raises a key question: How did McNamara perceive the conflict in the lead-up to the Americanization of the war in 1965? The authors depict McNamara and his fellow planners as true believers for the most part, “practically prisoners of a Cold War ideology that they felt required them to ‘defend freedom’ as well as American security in Vietnam.” McNamara at War refers to policymakers’ “misplaced confidence” through mid-1965 and their endorsement of the domino theory, the belief that the fall of even one Southeast Asian country to communism would cause neighboring states to follow suit. At home in the United States, meanwhile, the so-called Cold War consensus dictated that any leader deemed insufficiently vigilant regarding the global Soviet threat would pay a steep political price.
It’s a common enough interpretation of official thinking from 1961 to 1965, and it is in its way exculpatory: however problematic American officials’ assessment of the stakes in Vietnam might appear in hindsight, it was fully understandable, indeed overdetermined, in the context of the time. McNamara pushed back against the idea later in his life, but only to a degree. He wrote in 1999 that “leaders are supposed to lead, to resist pressures or ‘forces’ of this sort, to understand more fully than others the range of options and the implications of choosing such options.” He and his senior colleagues, beholden to their ideology, their hubris, and their ignorance of the motivations of both North and South Vietnam, failed to do this, he lamented.
Following graduation in 1937, McNamara went on to Harvard Business School, blazing a path of such distinction that he was invited to join the faculty as an assistant professor of business administration soon after receiving his master’s degree. During World War II, he and several other management specialists were recruited by Robert Lovett, then assistant secretary of war for air, to bring precision and efficiency to the study of air force effectiveness in bombing operations. McNamara again stood out as indefatigable and disciplined, with superior analytical intelligence and a ravenous appetite for information.
After the war, McNamara joined the Ford Motor Company. Named company controller in 1949, he had risen to group vice president in charge of all car and truck divisions by 1957. On November 9, 1960, the same day Kennedy claimed victory in a closely contested presidential election, McNamara was named president of the company, becoming the first person from outside the Ford family to hold that position since 1906.
Within weeks of his win, Kennedy tapped McNamara to head the Department of Defense. In short order, McNamara became first among equals in Kennedy’s cabinet, winning plaudits for his use of systems analysis to make the Pentagon function more economically by reducing weapons redundancies among the services and better allocating resources. Appearing before congressional committees, he dazzled lawmakers with his intellect, his command of detail, and his crisp, authoritative style of presentation. Among aides, he inspired admiration and devotion, not least for his work ethic: subordinates who made a point of getting to work early would invariably find McNamara’s car already in the Pentagon garage.
Já em 1962, McNamara começara a duvidar das perspectivas do Vietnã do Sul.
Senior military officers, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were less enthused. To them, the hard-hitting style of McNamara and his “whiz kid” civilian aides, many of them plucked from the Rand Corporation or Ivy League schools, smacked of arrogance, as they presumed to lecture the services on how the Pentagon should operate. “He’s one of the most egotistical persons I know,” a top general complained to Time. The result, predictably, was frequent altercations with the chiefs, who clamored for more of everything and had grown accustomed to allying with lawmakers eager to procure defense contracts for their districts or states.
Yet McNamara triumphed in many of these power struggles, and in doing so put his stamp on the office to a greater extent than any secretary of defense before him or since. In addition to his efforts to reorganize the Pentagon, he was deeply involved in high-level national security and foreign policy matters. Alongside Kennedy, McNamara determined soon after taking office that nuclear weapons were essentially useless, and he expressed horror at the apocalyptic overkill of the new Single Integrated Operational Plan for waging nuclear war, which called for the president to launch thousands of nuclear weapons in the event of an armed conflict with the Soviet Union. He pressed for a more flexible doctrine, including the adoption of a “counterforce” strategy that would target Soviet missile sites rather than cities.
At the outset of the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, McNamara shocked colleagues by asserting that the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba did not appreciably shift the nuclear balance. During the harrowing days that followed, he was not always consistent in his advocacy, but he remained a reasoned and prudent voice and an early proponent of the blockade that would ultimately defuse the crisis.
MILITARY CHARADE
It was Vietnam, however, that would forever define McNamara’s legacy in government. From the administration’s first days in 1961, he took a leading role in shaping U.S. support for South Vietnam. That fall, with the insurgency against the Saigon government gaining strength, General Maxwell Taylor and Deputy National Security Adviser Walt Rostow returned from a fact-finding mission to Saigon to recommend sending more U.S. military advisers and a limited number of combat troops. McNamara initially endorsed the recommendation, but when Kennedy ruled out sending ground forces, the secretary quickly adopted that position as his own—not the last time, the Taubmans tartly note, that “he seemed to tailor his views about Vietnam to align them with his president’s.”
This would indeed become McNamara’s pattern in the years to come. And it raises a key question: How did McNamara perceive the conflict in the lead-up to the Americanization of the war in 1965? The authors depict McNamara and his fellow planners as true believers for the most part, “practically prisoners of a Cold War ideology that they felt required them to ‘defend freedom’ as well as American security in Vietnam.” McNamara at War refers to policymakers’ “misplaced confidence” through mid-1965 and their endorsement of the domino theory, the belief that the fall of even one Southeast Asian country to communism would cause neighboring states to follow suit. At home in the United States, meanwhile, the so-called Cold War consensus dictated that any leader deemed insufficiently vigilant regarding the global Soviet threat would pay a steep political price.
It’s a common enough interpretation of official thinking from 1961 to 1965, and it is in its way exculpatory: however problematic American officials’ assessment of the stakes in Vietnam might appear in hindsight, it was fully understandable, indeed overdetermined, in the context of the time. McNamara pushed back against the idea later in his life, but only to a degree. He wrote in 1999 that “leaders are supposed to lead, to resist pressures or ‘forces’ of this sort, to understand more fully than others the range of options and the implications of choosing such options.” He and his senior colleagues, beholden to their ideology, their hubris, and their ignorance of the motivations of both North and South Vietnam, failed to do this, he lamented.
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| McNamara, Johnson e líderes sul-vietnamitas em Honolulu, Havaí, fevereiro de 1966. Arquivos Nacionais e Administração de Registros dos EUA |
What to make of this? McNamara at War, which draws on a rather limited selection of secondary and documentary sources, never fully interrogates high-level thinking in the key period of decision-making from the late summer of 1963 to March 1965, which I have elsewhere called “the long 1964.” (Like many authors, the Taubmans make much of the administration’s high-level discussions in July 1965; by then, however, the Americanization train had already left the station. By July, when Johnson gave the appearance of agonizing over whether to escalate, the decision to launch an air war and a surge in ground troops had already been made.)
Decades later, McNamara himself singled out the importance of this 18-month stretch. In his 1995 memoir In Retrospect, he wrote: “We could and should have withdrawn from South Vietnam either in late 1963 . . . or in late 1964 or early 1965.”
What a close analysis of the vast internal record for the period reveals is that senior American planners were reasonably aware of the dynamics of the conflict and the obstacles to U.S. military success. They were, for the most part, somber realists. Late in life, McNamara would come to adopt the mantra “If only we had known,” but at the start of 1965, he in fact already had a solid grasp of the strength of the insurgency, of the chronic political instability in South Vietnam, and of the shallow support for the war at home and abroad. He and his colleagues knew that Democratic leaders in the U.S. Senate opposed expanding the American military commitment and that key allied powers such as Canada, France, Japan, and the United Kingdom questioned the conflict’s importance to Western security. Senior American officials themselves expressed private doubts on this score, suggesting that the domino theory had lost much of its grip, at least behind closed doors. Overall, the documentation gives little evidence of the hubris so often attributed to these men, first by David Halberstam in his classic work, The Best and the Brightest.
As early as 1962, McNamara had begun to doubt South Vietnam’s prospects in combating the insurgency, even with U.S. aid. Recordings of top-level meetings from October 1963 capture him telling colleagues, “We need a way to get out of Vietnam.” In early 1964, following Kennedy’s assassination, he voiced broad concerns to a recalcitrant Johnson. By 1965, he was more direct. In late June, as more American ground troops arrived in South Vietnam, McNamara confessed to a senior British official that “none of us at the center of things talk about winning a victory.”
Yet this same McNamara fully backed the U.S. ground-force commitment and was an architect of Operation Rolling Thunder, the sustained bombing campaign aimed at breaking Hanoi’s resolve—and bucking up Saigon’s—that began in March 1965 and would run for more than three years. To lawmakers and journalists that spring, he expressed full faith that the new measures were necessary and would yield success.
RESIGNED TO CONTINUE
The authors understand that one of their principal tasks is explaining the disconnect between McNamara’s private skepticism and his “baldly deceptive public reports on the conflict.” Looking back in his memoir, he wondered why he “did not force a probing debate about whether it would ever be possible to forge a winning military effort on a foundation of political quicksand.” Why indeed? Failing that, why did he not resign? Sheer personal ambition was surely part of it—McNamara treasured his position at the pinnacle of power, and keeping it required unstinting fealty to his boss, who vowed from his first days in office that he would not lose Vietnam. This was loyalty, but of a particular and misplaced kind, the Taubmans make clear: to the commander in chief rather than to principle or to the Constitution. McNamara’s rejoinder, that presidents deserve faithfulness from their aides, who are unelected and serve at the pleasure of the chief executive, was not so much wrong as it was insufficient.
Beyond loyalty, McNamara convinced himself that he could do more to restrain the Joint Chiefs and Johnson from within government than from without. As the war escalated, he pushed successfully for pauses in American bombing and for limits on the aerial assault on North Vietnam. His analysis of the data, together with his findings on his trips to the war zone, led him to a conclusion that many in the military disliked but today seems irrefutable: heavier bombing of the North would not result in anything approximating true “victory.”
Harder to credit is McNamara’s belief that the window for a political settlement remained open even as the U.S. military campaign escalated. He never fully acknowledged that from Hanoi’s viewpoint, any negotiated agreement would require an American withdrawal, leading in all probability to a takeover of the South by Hanoi. Nor did he reconcile his desire for compromise with Johnson’s lack of interest in exploring imaginative diplomatic ways out of the war. Undersecretary of State George Ball told colleagues that the White House was “following the traditional pattern for negotiating with a mule; just keep hitting him on the head with a two-by-four until he does what you want him to do.’’
O FANTASMA DE MCNAMARA
Como sugerem os Taubmans, o problema fundamental de McNamara era que ele jamais conseguiria se eximir de sua responsabilidade por ter envolvido os Estados Unidos em uma guerra de larga escala, estagnada e de méritos questionáveis. Mais do que qualquer outra pessoa, com exceção de Johnson, ele era o responsável. O resultado foi que McNamara “nunca conseguiu provar honestamente que, desde o início, duvidara das chances de vitória”, observou Ball posteriormente. “Assim, renunciar e tornar o assunto público poderia deixá-lo com a sensação de ter enganado o Presidente e os colegas com quem trabalhava em um ambiente de grande confiança.” Além disso, ele estaria traindo os soldados americanos que arriscavam a vida na selva. Então, ele persistiu, mês após mês sangrento, apesar de seu próprio desânimo e do desencanto daqueles que lhe eram queridos, incluindo seu filho adolescente, Craig, e Jacqueline Kennedy, com quem McNamara havia desenvolvido uma estreita amizade.
Em última análise, o julgamento final do papel de Robert McNamara na Guerra do Vietnã deve ser severo, menos por ter supervisionado as fases iniciais da intervenção militar americana do que por não ter agido com mais franqueza em relação às suas dúvidas posteriores. Muito pelo contrário: nos meses cruciais entre 1964 e 1965, ele apresentou ao público e ao Congresso a imagem de um homem resolutamente confiante na missão e na probabilidade de vitória.
Na velhice, McNamara lamentou que seus sucessores parecessem relutantes em acatar seus conselhos arduamente conquistados — sobre a necessidade de empatia com o oponente e de questionar as próprias premissas; sobre os limites da tecnologia militar e do poder geopolítico dos EUA; sobre os perigos da escalada nuclear. Os Taubmans também compartilham desse pesar. “As lições que ele tirou do Vietnã”, escrevem eles com simpatia, “proporcionaram insights que, se tivessem sido levados em consideração por seus sucessores, poderiam ter ajudado os Estados Unidos a evitar desastres no Iraque e no Afeganistão. O perigo de que a lealdade inabalável aos presidentes em questões de segurança nacional possa levar à calamidade deve servir de lição para os comandantes-em-chefe atuais e futuros.”
Sem dúvida, McNamara era, como os autores afirmam, uma “figura fatalmente falha” para transmitir essa mensagem. Mas é importante que ele a tenha transmitido. Ainda que tardiamente e de forma imperfeita, ele fez algo que poucas figuras públicas se dispõem a fazer: confrontar seus erros e tentar se redimir. McNamara fez esse esforço, chegando, em última análise, ao único julgamento possível: “Estávamos errados, terrivelmente errados.”
Decades later, McNamara himself singled out the importance of this 18-month stretch. In his 1995 memoir In Retrospect, he wrote: “We could and should have withdrawn from South Vietnam either in late 1963 . . . or in late 1964 or early 1965.”
What a close analysis of the vast internal record for the period reveals is that senior American planners were reasonably aware of the dynamics of the conflict and the obstacles to U.S. military success. They were, for the most part, somber realists. Late in life, McNamara would come to adopt the mantra “If only we had known,” but at the start of 1965, he in fact already had a solid grasp of the strength of the insurgency, of the chronic political instability in South Vietnam, and of the shallow support for the war at home and abroad. He and his colleagues knew that Democratic leaders in the U.S. Senate opposed expanding the American military commitment and that key allied powers such as Canada, France, Japan, and the United Kingdom questioned the conflict’s importance to Western security. Senior American officials themselves expressed private doubts on this score, suggesting that the domino theory had lost much of its grip, at least behind closed doors. Overall, the documentation gives little evidence of the hubris so often attributed to these men, first by David Halberstam in his classic work, The Best and the Brightest.
As early as 1962, McNamara had begun to doubt South Vietnam’s prospects in combating the insurgency, even with U.S. aid. Recordings of top-level meetings from October 1963 capture him telling colleagues, “We need a way to get out of Vietnam.” In early 1964, following Kennedy’s assassination, he voiced broad concerns to a recalcitrant Johnson. By 1965, he was more direct. In late June, as more American ground troops arrived in South Vietnam, McNamara confessed to a senior British official that “none of us at the center of things talk about winning a victory.”
Yet this same McNamara fully backed the U.S. ground-force commitment and was an architect of Operation Rolling Thunder, the sustained bombing campaign aimed at breaking Hanoi’s resolve—and bucking up Saigon’s—that began in March 1965 and would run for more than three years. To lawmakers and journalists that spring, he expressed full faith that the new measures were necessary and would yield success.
RESIGNED TO CONTINUE
The authors understand that one of their principal tasks is explaining the disconnect between McNamara’s private skepticism and his “baldly deceptive public reports on the conflict.” Looking back in his memoir, he wondered why he “did not force a probing debate about whether it would ever be possible to forge a winning military effort on a foundation of political quicksand.” Why indeed? Failing that, why did he not resign? Sheer personal ambition was surely part of it—McNamara treasured his position at the pinnacle of power, and keeping it required unstinting fealty to his boss, who vowed from his first days in office that he would not lose Vietnam. This was loyalty, but of a particular and misplaced kind, the Taubmans make clear: to the commander in chief rather than to principle or to the Constitution. McNamara’s rejoinder, that presidents deserve faithfulness from their aides, who are unelected and serve at the pleasure of the chief executive, was not so much wrong as it was insufficient.
Beyond loyalty, McNamara convinced himself that he could do more to restrain the Joint Chiefs and Johnson from within government than from without. As the war escalated, he pushed successfully for pauses in American bombing and for limits on the aerial assault on North Vietnam. His analysis of the data, together with his findings on his trips to the war zone, led him to a conclusion that many in the military disliked but today seems irrefutable: heavier bombing of the North would not result in anything approximating true “victory.”
Harder to credit is McNamara’s belief that the window for a political settlement remained open even as the U.S. military campaign escalated. He never fully acknowledged that from Hanoi’s viewpoint, any negotiated agreement would require an American withdrawal, leading in all probability to a takeover of the South by Hanoi. Nor did he reconcile his desire for compromise with Johnson’s lack of interest in exploring imaginative diplomatic ways out of the war. Undersecretary of State George Ball told colleagues that the White House was “following the traditional pattern for negotiating with a mule; just keep hitting him on the head with a two-by-four until he does what you want him to do.’’
O FANTASMA DE MCNAMARA
Como sugerem os Taubmans, o problema fundamental de McNamara era que ele jamais conseguiria se eximir de sua responsabilidade por ter envolvido os Estados Unidos em uma guerra de larga escala, estagnada e de méritos questionáveis. Mais do que qualquer outra pessoa, com exceção de Johnson, ele era o responsável. O resultado foi que McNamara “nunca conseguiu provar honestamente que, desde o início, duvidara das chances de vitória”, observou Ball posteriormente. “Assim, renunciar e tornar o assunto público poderia deixá-lo com a sensação de ter enganado o Presidente e os colegas com quem trabalhava em um ambiente de grande confiança.” Além disso, ele estaria traindo os soldados americanos que arriscavam a vida na selva. Então, ele persistiu, mês após mês sangrento, apesar de seu próprio desânimo e do desencanto daqueles que lhe eram queridos, incluindo seu filho adolescente, Craig, e Jacqueline Kennedy, com quem McNamara havia desenvolvido uma estreita amizade.
Em última análise, o julgamento final do papel de Robert McNamara na Guerra do Vietnã deve ser severo, menos por ter supervisionado as fases iniciais da intervenção militar americana do que por não ter agido com mais franqueza em relação às suas dúvidas posteriores. Muito pelo contrário: nos meses cruciais entre 1964 e 1965, ele apresentou ao público e ao Congresso a imagem de um homem resolutamente confiante na missão e na probabilidade de vitória.
Na velhice, McNamara lamentou que seus sucessores parecessem relutantes em acatar seus conselhos arduamente conquistados — sobre a necessidade de empatia com o oponente e de questionar as próprias premissas; sobre os limites da tecnologia militar e do poder geopolítico dos EUA; sobre os perigos da escalada nuclear. Os Taubmans também compartilham desse pesar. “As lições que ele tirou do Vietnã”, escrevem eles com simpatia, “proporcionaram insights que, se tivessem sido levados em consideração por seus sucessores, poderiam ter ajudado os Estados Unidos a evitar desastres no Iraque e no Afeganistão. O perigo de que a lealdade inabalável aos presidentes em questões de segurança nacional possa levar à calamidade deve servir de lição para os comandantes-em-chefe atuais e futuros.”
Sem dúvida, McNamara era, como os autores afirmam, uma “figura fatalmente falha” para transmitir essa mensagem. Mas é importante que ele a tenha transmitido. Ainda que tardiamente e de forma imperfeita, ele fez algo que poucas figuras públicas se dispõem a fazer: confrontar seus erros e tentar se redimir. McNamara fez esse esforço, chegando, em última análise, ao único julgamento possível: “Estávamos errados, terrivelmente errados.”
FREDRIK LOGEVALL é professor titular da Cátedra Laurence D. Belfer de História e Relações Internacionais na Universidade Harvard. Ele é autor de JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917–1956 e Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam.
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